ICT4D: The Power of Communication to Save Lives

Giving to ICT4D Church Initiatives at United Methodist Communications ensures that when emergencies strike, a clear message is sent the right way – reaching people where they are – so that the sacredness of life is preserved. For as little as fifteen cents, a pastor living in a remote part of the world can receive a word of health and hope through connectional text messaging. Give now so others can be reached.

During the Ebola crisis, hundreds of pastors and church leaders in Liberia and Sierra Leone have been reached with Ebola education and words of encouragement through simple text messages, so that congregations and communities may overcome misinformation that has killed so many. And, solar cellphone chargers with hand-crank radios and light have kept church leaders connected, when choices between electricity and food had to be made. Read more

The United Methodist Church radio station in Monrovia, Liberia has gotten needed repairs, and been given health and inspirational messages to broadcast to a community suffering perhaps the worst tragedy of their lives.

And, a simple 4-minute animation that shares a story about a boy dying from Ebola and wanting to save others has been produced, reaching thousands of people throughout West Africa via national television, radio, internet and local showings – in their own dialects through collaboration in well over ten countries. View video and other Ebola news articles.

After Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, United Methodist Communications Crisis Fund brought communications relief to those in desperate situations. Read More

Solar lights were provided to many outside The United Methodist Church, so they could experience the light of Christ in word and deed – giving them light in their homes to cook, study or travel by night on dark pathways .

Training and tablet computers with offline apps were given to frontline relief workers so they could provide life’s essentials to survivors who could do more than wait to be found.

A clear message sent the right way can reach people where they are, and save lives. United Methodist Communications ICT4D Church Initiatives helps make this happen in the developing regions of the world so that the power of communications can save and improve lives.

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Information & Communications Technology for Development is being used to transform communications across the Church, and within communities in the developing world who have been most cut off from technological advances.
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